Her Magazine is New Zealand’s only women’s business lifestyle magazine! Her Magazine highlights the achievements of successful and rising New Zealand businesswomen. Her Magazine encourages a healthy work/life balance.
Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaleditions.com/i/49418
board was prepared to allow someone to develop." Over the next 15 years Sue held directorships in Ngai Tahu Holdings Limited, served as the chairman of the National Provident Fund and was involved with the governance of GirlGuiding New Zealand. Sue was also on the Interim Development Group that eventually became the board of Meridian Energy – the role she discerns as her most rewarding. "We worked through the process of certifying to the Crown that Meridian could operate in a competitive environment once ECNZ was split up, and that it would be a viable entity. It was a very interesting but very large start-up business that I think of as one of the great opportunities in my business life; to be part of establishing a new entity that started off with $2 billion of assets on day one and $500 million of revenue. I've been involved in a lot of business start-ups over the years but typically much, much smaller. It was also an opportunity to work with a great group of directors which was chosen by Wayne Boyd, one person who can take credit for being one of my mentors." In 2007, Sue was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to business – a title she is quick to brush off. "Those are the things that other people get," she modestly insists. "A Companion award normally goes to people in important roles. I am a person who gets on with the job – I never stop and reflect whether what I'm doing is as important as what others are doing." But her track record leaves no doubt that Sue Sheldon is more than deserving. Her dedication and drive that has lead to her success can be attributed to her unordinary upbringing. At a time when single parent families were the exception Sue celebrates a mother who, when circumstances out of her control left her a young widow, she determinedly did the very best she could for her two daughters. "My father died on Territorial Force Volunteer duty for the Defence Force," Sue tells. Because my father died when I was one-year-old friends and family rallied around more than they might have done to help my mother. She was a single parent in a time when no one had single parents. People stayed together for their family's sake." The Nelson-based family of Sue, her mother and her sister, Judith later grew when her mother remarried and had another child, a son, Garry. The family moved south to Christchurch in the late 60s for the children to complete their secondary schooling. Forty-plus years on Sue continues to reside in the Garden City despite earthquake impacts. "When I was in Standard Three at Stoke School in Nelson the headmaster decided I should sit the intermediate exams, which I did and I skipped Standard Four and went straight to intermediate," Sue tells. "My mother had some justification that I was intelligent, then we came to Christchurch and no one wanted me as a pupil. "At the time we came to Christchurch what might have been the logical high schools, Burnside High and Christchurch Girls High School, for my sister and I to attend didn't want us on the basis that all professional courses were full. There was my poor mother with two, what she thought, quite smart daughters and nobody wanted us. The next school of choice was Christchurch West which welcomed both of us with open arms. The following year the school combined with the Christchurch Technical College, both of which had declining rolls, to form Hagley High School. Hagley High didn't have a good reputation at the time. If you were talking to people who went to Christchurch Girls or one of the private schools they would not have considered Hagley High to be a good choice for "...I am a person who gets on with the job – I never stop and reflect whether what I'm doing is as important as what others are doing." HER MAGAZINE | December/January 2012 | 25